Body Sovereignty

Body Sovereignty is the concept that each person has the right to full control of their body. It counteracts the culturally-promoted ideas that limit one’s body is anyone else’s business. This works on many levels: food, clothing, sexual activity, tattoos, piercing etc. Society seeks to have folks conform to a standard that it prescribes. The body sovereignty rejects this and promotes a positive relationship between the self and the body. It supports complete body autonomy in every regard.

We believe that there is no “right” way to have a body. Our society has created unattainable standards and demands that people to conform to them. Messages of what bodies are “supposed” to look like and what we’re supposed to do with them circulate in every aspect of our lives. This fuels negative body relationships and self-loathing, and normalizes body-shaming and whorephobia, to name just two. We push back against these standards and celebrate the body in all its varieties.

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We acknowledge that SFPIRG occupies unceded Indigenous land belonging to Coast Salish peoples. Unceded means that this land was never surrendered, relinquished or handed over in any way. We recognize that the unceded land that we occupy at SFU Burnaby includes the territories of the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlem Nations. Learn more about Acknowledgements of Indigenous Territories and how to make them.